Health

For more than five million women in the U.S., getting maternity care is difficult or impossible. More than one-third (36%) of U.S. counties are considered “maternity care deserts,” which means they do not have any obstetric providers or birth centers. In just one year, the number of birthing hospitals has …

Cases of leprosy are surging in central Florida, according to a recent research letter shared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The authors said that the Sunshine State has “witnessed an increased incidence of leprosy cases lacking traditional risk factors,” with trends contributing to “rising evidence that leprosy …

A Los Angeles County community has been placed under quarantine due to the detection of the Tau fruit fly in the unincorporated area of Stevenson Ranch. The California Department of Food and Agriculture said last week that more than 20 of the flies were found near the city of Santa …

A Georgia resident has died from a rare “brain-eating amoeba,” the state’s health department confirmed last Wednesday.  The resident likely became infected while swimming in a freshwater lake or pond in Georgia, the health department said.  “Naegleria fowleri” is a rare infection that destroys brain tissue, causing brain swelling and …

A rising number of women are succumbing to alcohol-related deaths, a new study published in JAMA Network on July 28 found. While males historically have been more than twice as likely to die from alcohol-related conditions than females, the gap appears to be narrowing. Researchers from Hofstra University in New …

Two new clinical trials to test potential treatments for long COVID are now set to launch, the National Institutes of Health said Monday, opening enrollment for the first of an array of federally-funded studies aimed at evaluating treatments for long-term symptoms still faced by many COVID-19 survivors. They will begin …

There are a total of 9.2 million lead pipes across the country, with an estimated 1.16 million of them located in Florida, according to a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  These pipes potentially deliver contaminated drinking water to millions of households, the EPA said.  While the adverse …

Logging hours in the gym isn’t the only way to reap the health benefits of exercise.  Just four to five minutes of “vigorous physical activity” could reduce cancer risk significantly among people who have been generally inactive, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Oncology. Researchers from …

The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations is rising this summer in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Hospitalizations of people with the virus are up 10%, per CDC data — the sharpest increase since December 2022. More than 7,100 patients with COVID were hospitalized in …

Misdiagnoses in the U.S. lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths and major disabilities each year, according to a recent report from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Maryland. Each year, an estimated 795,000 Americans become permanently disabled or die due to a misdiagnosis, the study found. It was published …